2023-08-12 04:00:14
L’Echo went on patrol with two inspectors from the Midi police zone, which covers the Brussels municipalities of Saint-Gilles, Anderlecht and Forest. A short tour of the criminal phenomena of the Midi district.
For decades, the insecurity, the feeling of insecurity, the health situation and the concentration of social problems around the Gare du Midi in Brussels have shocked people beyond the Belgian borders. This summer, the perimeter once more caught the attention of the media because of the repetition of violent robberies, the very noticeable presence of people who live at the bottom of the social ladder.
A phenomenon, on the rise in recent months, seems to worsen the daily life of this gateway to the capital, a multimodal node which drains the passage of some 50,000 people per day: the use of crack, which is also increasingly flagrant in the city. This cocaine, hardened with a chemical additive, sells in pebbles for 5 to 10 euros each and wreaks havoc among the homeless who survive in appalling hygienic conditions in the tram tunnel which adjoins the station and in every corner of the building and its surroundings.
The district, extended to part of Cureghem up to the Porte de Hal, concentrates different types of crime. The police of the Midi zone (Anderlecht, Forest, Saint-Gilles), decided to make it a priority zone this summer and multiplies the patrols and interventions there. She agreed to take L’Echo into one of her cars for two hours. The two officers who guided us prefer to remain anonymous, so we will call them Principal Inspector Lebleu and Inspector Lerouge.
It is 5 p.m. on Tuesday at the police station on rue de Liège in Forest. Chief Inspector Lebleu takes stock with two of his men, who have just returned from intervention with a block of freshly seized hashish. On our way to the vehicle he intended for us, we decided to start with a short tour of the Bethlehem Square in Saint-Gilles, where, for a long time, the cannabis deal has taken possession of the public space, mingling with families and restaurant customers. A few weeks ago, a patrol in intervention suffered attacks from groups of young people, a video turned well in social media. An episode which follows a riot which broke out in another district very close to Saint-Gilles. Between the two, the traffic has woven its web of obscure distribution networks.
“We stayed until late to try to keep the neighborhood calm, recalls Inspector Lebleu while driving. small barricades to block the streets. We like it, it stands out, but we think of the people who live there.”
The very lucrative Bethlehem Square
As the unmarked vehicle approaches Bethlehem Square, he recounts the morning’s capture. “My colleagues ran following one of the vendors who had a bag, they recovered it, inside, a large quantity of narcotics ready for resale (1.3 kilos exactly, he will learn later). Almost every time we work, we manage to grab at least one bag. We have been working on the site since the beginning of July, we have done 7 or 8 interventions and each time it was a jackpot.”
“We talk physically,” he adds, laughing.
“If we get on this side of the square, it goes to sell on the other side despite our presence.”
On the square, the deal is well established. The police vehicle drives past a group with defiant looks. Those called the “choufs”, the lookouts, are there to warn the sellers by shouting “Arah”, explains the policeman. A simple passage in no way hinders this very lucrative business. “If we get on this side of the square, it goes to sell on the other side despite our presence”.
“After an intervention, the sale starts once more directly, it is hyper profitable. This street here, for example, is a drive-in. There’s a line every day”, he adds. “A transaction every 20 seconds, all day”, adds Inspector Lerouge. According to them, a lookout earns between 100 and 150 euros per day while the sellers pocket 300 euros a day.
“The decision-makers are from the neighborhood, but the sellers are illegal or minors, but not from here, says Lebleu. We have already had young people from Liège aged 14-15 or from the north of Brussels. When we intervene, it’s on the run, we don’t come with a single patrol.” “They also do riot callsthey then arrive en masse, with a single patrol, it is very difficult to manage”, specifies Lerouge.
“We have children aged 9 or 11 who steal colleagues’ mobile phones during interventions, when they go to their parents’ house, we tell them ‘yes, they are playing outside, it’s the holidays’. “We see that some parents, not all of course play this game because trafficking brings money to the family“, indicates Inspector Lerouge before detailing the interiors stuffed with overpriced electro of people from the CPAS. We continue our journey towards the Gare du Midi.
Fake taxis on the streets of England
After the express warning of a young man who had just carried out a particularly loud wheeling on a large engine, another urban scourge, we arrive in the immediate vicinity of the station. “We’re going to go to rue d’Angleterre”, suggests the main inspector Lebleu. He describes a business that is also well established there: the clandestine taxi service. A series of vans are parked there waiting for their passengers.
“These are taxis that connect the Gare du Midi to Paris, but they are not real, continues the policeman. They are sometimes French or German vehicles, driven by people who are always of African origin. They take 4 -5-6 people, always in the same place, you pay 50-70 euros and you are driven by people who of course have no authorization and even less insurance to transport people”. A little further on, a few men are seated. “They are the ones who manage.
©Kristof Vadino
The activity generates only little disturbance to public order apart from occasional fights. “Our services have already worked on this phenomenon which has been growing for months, and the problem is still there“, indicates Inspector Lebleu. “Now we are arriving at the festive part of the district”, he continues, turning into rue de l’Argonne, also very close to the station.
Coke on the terrace
The street features a series of cafes. The activity of certain individuals – alone on the terrace despite the rainy weather, “with a small bag” – is beyond doubt for our two experienced police officers. “In some African cafes, we have the sale of cocaine, explains the chief inspector. In particular to homeless people, who often steal because they don’t have a job. Cocaine, crack and violence, it’s an endless cycle.”
The car soon stops to check a man slumped in the entrance of a building, at the intersection of the small belt. Nothing to report otherwise subject’s comatose state. This is where thieves sort their prizes, leaving bags or luggage behind.
The policeman explains that the tourists who disembark at the Gare du Midi make ideal prey. Baggage theft is also on the rise. Close to hotels, in particular. “These people are waiting, looking for their destination on their smartphone, they are easy targets, by the time they react, we left with their luggage.”
“Tourists are waiting, looking for their destination on their smartphone, they are easy targets.”
This type of offense is also developing on the other side of the station, rue de France, where buses depart daily for Charleroi airport. Here, the modus operandi is simple, the thief directly seizes the luggage that the traveler, boarding the bus, has just loaded into the hold. The phenomenon is all the more difficult to curb as the victims, who are often not from Brussels, do not file a complaint or, in the best of cases, do so with their own police zone.
The tunnel of shame
It is on this side of the station that the vehicle will stop at the entrance to what has been called the “tunnel of shame”, which links rue des Vétérinaires to avenue Fonsny over a hundred meters. A cesspool. “It’s a squat, at least they’re sheltered from the rain, they are almost only undocumented“, explains the policeman as we discover heaps of rubbish of all kinds. In a pestilential smell, a mixture of urine, humidity, beer and putrefaction, men sleep on infected mattresses.
“We might control and arrest undocumented migrants, but given the number of people there are, we would never stop.”
We ask if the local police carry out specific checks on the right of residence. “Yes, but only as part of our security mission, we do not carry out direct checks, he replies. We might control and stop, but given the number of people there, we would never stop.”
The evening is rather quiet. “422, request for confirmation of incarceration for narcotics trafficking”, the radio soon spits. – Major and legal in Belgium? – Legal, adult – So incarceration confirmed, where does he live? – No address in Belgium. Eight cokeballs, a pacson of cannabis and some moneywe intercepted him at the time of the transaction”. Questioned, the inspector specifies that in general, customers are only intercepted for their testimony in order to feed the criminal file of the dealer. If the possession of drugs is illegal, a certain tolerance of prosecutors has prevailed for a long time.
“There are perpetrators who are not drug addicts, there are also homeless people who simply steal to eat.”
After this exchange, Chief Inspector Lebleu leads us to Square de l’Aviation. There too, “we have a lot of worries”. “Drug use and theft are the two big problems space. The police officer does not want to establish a direct link between theft and consumption, “but often thefts are committed by consumers”.
We ask whether the use of crack, a hard drug, increases the violence of the facts. “Let’s say that crack does not help, he answers. In a way yes, the phenomenon increases the occurrence of acts of violence, now there are authors who are not drug addictsthere are also homeless and undocumented people who do not benefit from any social assistance and who simply steal to eat.”
Crack, a recent scourge
The use of crack is becoming more and more visible in Brussels where it is no longer rare to see consumers smoking this solidified cocaine in full view in metro stations. Bruno Valkeneers is the spokesperson for the ASBL Transit, which offers support (health care, administrative support, housing) to a public who evolve in the most precarious situations: homeless drug users. “When you ask people to track what they use, it’s the crack that comes out,” he explains. There has been an increase of regarding 10% of people reporting this product.“In 2022, 67% of Transit’s public declared that they used crack. For the specialist, it is the abundance of the offer that makes the success of this hard drug. This, unlike heroin, the use is decreasing, there is no substitute product that can lead to a return to normal life. Traffickers directly approach the homeless while the retail sale of pebbles of crack for 5 or 10 euros is particularly suited to the compulsive consumption that characterizes the taking of this drug as well as to the precariousness of the homeless.
“It provides a quick flash that allows them to forget their problems, and very quickly, the consumer only thinks of getting the product”, explains Bruno Valkeneer. The phenomenon also owes its success to the significant increase in precariousness, and therefore in the number of homeless people, observed over the past two years. Does crack increase the violence of drug offences? “As opposed to heroin which is a sedative, crack is a performance drug which gives you a feeling of power, describes Bruno Valkeneer. some people. But I don’t want to generalize, because at our level, we have very few violent incidents. I wouldn’t want to induce a moral panic. Violence can manifest itself, but we are not facing to people who have the knife at hand to attack”, he adds.
For him, the violence that must above all be combated is that of the traffickers, while senior officials of the judicial police have just warned of the increase in this crime (six murders since the beginning of the year in Brussels). “If we focus the action on consumers, we leave the field open to traffickers,” he believes.
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